Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster

by Eleanor Hull

That evening their horses were not placed in the same paddock, nor did their charioteers sleep beside the same fire, but the charioteer of Cuchulain slept with his master on the north of the ford, and the charioteer of Ferdia slept on the south side of the ford.

Next morning Ferdia went forth alone to the ford of battle, for he knew that on that day the combat would be decided; that then and in that place one of them or both of them would fall.

On that day both heroes put on their full fighting array, their kilts of striped silk next their skin, and a thick apron of brown leather above that to protect the lower part of the body. And they put on their crested battle-helmets, with jewels of rubies and carbuncles and crystals blazing in the front, gems that had been brought from the East to Ireland. And they took their huge shields which covered the whole body, with great bosses in the centre of each shield, and their swords in their right hands, and thus they came forward to the battle. And as they went they displayed the many noble, quick-changing feats that Scáth had taught them, and it was difficult to tell which of them exceeded the other in the performance of those skilful weapon-feats.

Thus they came to the ford. And Cuchulain said: “What weapons shall we choose this day, O Ferdia?” “Thine is the choice to-day,” said he. Then Cuchulain said, “Let us then practise the Feat of the Ford.”

“We will do so,” said Ferdia; but though he said that, sorrowful was he in saying it, for he knew that no warrior ever escaped alive from Cuchulain when they practised the Feat of the Ford.

Terrible and mighty were the deeds that were done that day by those two heroes, the Champions of the West, the pillars of valour of the Gael. Quietly they used their weapons in the early morning, parrying and casting with skill and warily, and neither did great harm to the other; but about midday, their anger grew hot, and they drew nearer to each other, and Cuchulain sprang upon his adversary, and made as though he would cut off his head over the rim of his shield. But Ferdia gave the shield a stroke upward with his left knee, and cast Cuchulain from him like a little child, and he fell down on the brink of the ford. Now Cuchulain’s charioteer, who was watching the combat from the bank, saw this, and he began to reproach Cuchulain as his master had bade him do, if he should give way in the fight.

“Ah, indeed,” said Laeg, “this warrior can cast the Hound of Ulster from him as a woman tosses up her child; he flings thee up like the foam on a stream; he smites thee as the woodman’s axe fells an oak; he darts on thee as a hungry hawk pounces on little birds. Henceforth thou hast no claim to be called brave or valorous as long as thy life shall last, thou little fairy phantom!”

When Cuchulain heard these scoffing words, up he sprang with the swiftness of the wind, with the fierceness of a dragon, and with the strength of a lion, and his countenance was changed, and he became mighty and terrible in appearance, towering like a Giant or like a Fomor of the sea above Ferdia. A fearsome fight they made together, gripping and striking each other from middle day to fall of eve; and their charioteers and the men of Erin who stood by shivered as they watched the conflict. So close was the fight they made that their heads met above and their feet below, and their arms around the middle of their mighty shields. So close was the fight they made, that their shields were loosened at their centres, and the bosses that were on them started out. So close was the fight they made, that their spears and swords were bent and shivered in their hands. The fairy people of the glens and the wild demon folk of the winds, and the sprites of the valleys of the air, screamed from the rims of their shields and from the points of their spears and from the hafts of their swords. So closely were they locked together in that deadly strife, that the river was cast out of its bed, and it was dried up beneath them, so that a king or a queen might have made a couch in the middle of its course without a drop of water falling on them, though drops of blood might have fallen on them from the bodies of the two champions contending in the hollow of the stream. Such was the terror of the fight they made, that the horses of the Gaels broke away from their paddocks, bursting their bonds and rushing madly in their fright into the woods, and the women and young people and camp followers fled away southwards out of the camp.

Just at that time Ferdia caught Cuchulain in an unguarded moment, and he smote him with a stroke of his straight-edged sword, and buried it in his body, so that his blood streamed down to his girdle, and all the bottom of the ford became crimsoned with his blood. So rapid were the strokes of Ferdia, blow after blow, and cut after cut, that Cuchulain could abide it no longer. And he turned to Laeg, and asked him to give him the Gae Bolga. Now, when the Gae Bolga was laid upon the water, it would move forward of itself to seek its enemy, and no one could stand before its deadly dart. So when Ferdia heard Cu ask for the Gae Bolga, he made a downward stroke of his shield to protect his body. But when Cuchulain saw that, he flung his spear above the shield and it entered the hero’s chest; and as he fell, the Gae Bolga struck him and entered his body from below. “It is all over now, I fall by that,” said Ferdia. “But alas that I fall by thy hand. It is not right that I should die by thee, O Hound.”